The photos on this website are incredibly interesting. Big question: How did all those people in their fancy dresses and suits stay so clean? I can't seem to manage that feat even with paved roads and air conditioned cars....

And that timber mill -- how did they keep those logs stacked so high? I can't even manage to stack a cord of wood without a collapse or two....

A common misconception (advanced by John Ford/John Wayne westerns) that is debunked by the photos: The settlers rarely used horses to pull their various wagons (which themselves were rarely the famed Conestogas because the price tag was beyond the reach of most common folks of the day). Oxen were the Chevies and Hondas of the great emigration west.

OK, now that my Cliff Claven moment is out of the way, I can echo Levi's comment about the 6-packs. I thought that was a phenomenon born of the Bowmaster Age - I'm surprised to see it was so common in the Bow and Arrow Age as well.

It's hard to get fat when you spend four+ months of the year on the high plains in a teepee. The amount of calories that people used to burn to simply secure the calories for the next day is really amazing.

I was surprised at how nicely dressed everyone was as well. I'm trying to reconcile that with my house which was built in the 40s and has 2 3-foot wide closets for the whole house. They wore a lot of clothes but they must not have changed them very often.